Jeb Bush: Ads depict Mitt Romney as ‘devil incarnate’

TV ads depicting GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney as “the devil incarnate” are partly to blame for some voters struggling to relate to the candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday night.

“To answer your question about why it is that people may not relate to Mitt Romney, they’re seeing TV ads that make him into the devil incarnate,” he told CNN’s Piers Morgan. “And then he’s not been as comfortable with showing what’s in his heart and who he is, and that is what it is.”

Text Size

-

+

reset

Bush said Romney’s “had the bark scraped off of him by an opponent who wants to change the conversation as quick as possible away from his economic policy.”

“So if you watch TV ads in Florida — I don’t know if you know, we’re a battleground state — so we get a lot of TV ads,” he said. “You would think Mitt Romney … should be in prison for first degree something.”

He also came to Romney’s defense on the subject of how many years of tax returns the candidate should release. Bush noted that Romney, like his GOP nominee predecessor John McCain, released two years of tax returns, and that should be sufficient, he said.

“I may be an aberration, but I think his wealth was earned,” Bush said. “He earned it, his success should be celebrated, not be demonized. But we’re living in a world where every single aspect of every single little thing is scrutinized in unfair ways. And so I’m not sure what the motivation was to do what he did, but he did the same thing John McCain did and there wasn’t a big outcry. I mean, let’s be fair about that.”

Separately on Tuesday, Bush said the Republican Party needs to step up its game in reaching out to Latino voters, adding that “OK is about as good” as he can say of the job the party is doing so far.

In an interview that was filmed Monday and aired Tuesday, Bush told Fox News’s Bret Baier the GOP needs to make attracting Latino voters a “high priority.”

“You’ve talked about reaching out to Latinos many times,” Baier said. “Do you think your party is doing an okay job at that?”

“OK is about as good as I can say, to be honest with you,” Bush replied. “In the heat of a campaign it’s difficult to do that. It’s really the job of the party to have this be an objective, a high priority, during off-election years, really.”

And Hispanic elected officials need to “be the voice for this,” Bush said.

“Thankfully, the Republican Party has been the party that has elected people like [Nevada Gov.] Brian Sandoval and [New Mexico Gov.] Susana Martinez and [Florida Sen.] Marco Rubio and [Texas Senate candidate] Ted Cruz this fall,” Bush said.

interesting, Jeb, that when i turn on my tv here in Florida, by a margin of about 4 to 1, I see ads from MIttens and the new majority terrorist agenda, or whoever they are, making Obama out to be everything but a killer of baby seals. Its a gutter war these days, like it or not. typical GOP hypocrisy. Oh they aren't being nice to Willard, but its perfectly ok to vilify Obama. Go cry on Karl Rove's shoulder

It's a Mormon thing. It's called Lying for the Lord. And it's a tenet of the Mormon faith that, Mormons think, gives them the right to tell you a bald-faced lie, so long as it's a lie that somehow furthers the Mormon cause.

Now you know why Romney has no problem telling lies!. He's had a lot of practice!

Oh please just shut up. No one needs to be lectured by a Bush about dirty campaigning and deceitful ads especially when the centerpiece of the RNC convention and all of Romney's ads are based on a huge blatant lie

""Bush said the Republican Party needs to step up its game in reaching out to Latino voters."

This is becoming a bad joke. The GOP was competitive for Latinos under Bush, but they have since fallen way behind thanks almost entirely to their awful, nativist rhetoric on immigration. They are headed toward a situation that might be similar to the Republican standing with black voters.

"It's a Mormon thing. It's called Lying for the Lord. And it's a tenet of the Mormon faith that, Mormons think, gives them the right to tell you a bald-faced lie, so long as it's a lie that somehow furthers the Mormon cause."

I think the best part of this election is that I continually get to learn new things about my faith. As a practicing member of the LDS Church, I've never once heard anything about "Lying for the Lord" in the 20+ years of Church meetings I remember attending. The importance of honesty? Now there's something I've heard a lot of, but this supposed tenet of the Mormon faith? Not once.

Obama and Emmanuel are street fighters, and I don't think the Republicans are ready for it. The cons seem uncharicteristically back on their heels. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they think they can bully the president, but like most bullies, they seem stunned to have had their noses bloodied by the first few punches. They'll probably resort to picking up a pipe, at which point the crafty president will shift to jujitsu, disarm them, and flip them on their back , holding his foot on their necks.